Carol of the Goblins
by ALadyofStardust
Summary: In which Jareth fights in the war against Christmas Wrapping and he and Sarah exchange gifts. A DVD player may or may not have gone back in time and a Goblin may or may not have been on fire. Whatever, the cops left in the end. **Part of the Apartment-verse. Please see my profile for story order**


_You took my dreams from me_  
 _When I first found you_  
 _I kept them with me babe_  
 _I put them with my own_  
 _Can't make it all alone_  
 _I've built my dreams around you_

\- Fairytale of New York by The Pogues

* * *

"T'was the night before Christmas and all through the apartment, there were several creatures stirring but most notably the Fae king currently in a duel with my wrapping paper," Sarah said coming in through the front door. Jareth was sitting cross legged on the floor of her living room, hair sticking every which way and with several pieces of scotch tape in it. He was cursing in a language she didn't know at her wrapping paper, while the Peanuts Christmas special played in the background.

"Sarah!" He said with a start. "You weren't supposed to be home for another hour!"

"Traffic was better than I expected," she said with a smile, eyeing the nondescript box Jareth had half-wrapped. "My family sends their love and more importantly, their gifts."

Sarah held a bag of gifts up for him to see, but he only scowled at them.

"This holiday would be much improved without this patently impossible task."

"If you don't do it by hand how will I know you _mean_ it though?" Sarah teased. "If you can wrap my gift by hand I'll show you my trick for next year."

"I don't need a trick I need magic," he grumbled. "I truly despise you for these ridiculous gift rules."

"No you don't," she said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek and grabbing a stray piece of tape at the same time. "You just need to be creative."

"That wouldn't be necessary if you'd just let me," at this he gave a little hand wave and the lights on her tree all lit up. He cocked an expectant eyebrow as if this proved his point.

"And I've seen what wonders and sparkly delights magic gets me for Christmas. I want to see what my boyfriend gets me when he's got the same limitations as the rest of us mortals. My gift is _also_ not made with magic I'll remind you," she said, retreating to the kitchen. "Besides you're the Goblin King. Stuff of nightmares and such. Is a bit of shiny paper really going to be your downfall?"

"Oh do go off," he said bitterly. "And do not come in here until I am done wrapping!"

"Babe I will need my living room back before June," she called from the kitchen.

"I should really just return this and find a girlfriend who appreciates my magical abilities."

"Probably!" She called back. "In the meantime I'm going to start on dinner before the crew gets here. Ludo doesn't eat meat but Hoggle is currently on a weird Underground diet and can't have 'anything that flies' and I'm not sure…if he counts chickens?"

"He does," Jareth replied. "Most of the Underground chickens can fly, they just choose not to because they're disgusting lazy vermin."

"You're in such a good mood that I'm going to put on Christmas carols so I don't have to hear you shouting eldritch horrors at the scotch tape."

Sarah spent the rest of the afternoon making Christmas cookies and a very large pot of spaghetti and cauliflower balls. She wasn't much in the kitchen, but one of the only skills she picked up from Karen was knowing how to make some kickass cookies.

Her and Jareth had gotten into the habit of spending Christmas Eve together with their friends. Sarah was less and less interested in driving for three hours to Irene's place to hear about who was ruining the economy this year (her), what people needed to 'get over' (human rights usually), and when she was going to make something of her life (get married). It was exhausting and compared to the idea of curling up with Jareth watching Die Hard…well she knew which one she was choosing.

Jareth had begged off the Underground's Yule festivities as they were normally held at the Winter Court and he and the Winter Queen weren't currently on the best of terms. They had briefly debated decking the hell out of the castle's halls and doing a very medieval style Christmas, but Sarah wasn't up to it this year. She liked their low-key traditions of board games, mulled wine, and listening to Christmas music together. It always made her feel at home, and it was the part of the holidays she looked forward to the most.

"Would my beautiful, lovely, and generous girlfriend be willing to come in here a moment?" Jareth called from the living room.

"Sure but she isn't helping you any," Sarah said, laying out the Christmas cookies on a plate.

"Well then nevermind!" he yelled.

"You've got another half an hour and then you'll need to give up and come play Settlers of Catan. Hoggle won't play Risk with both of us anymore," Sarah said, reminding him of what Hoggle colloquially referred to as "the most scarring experience of his life."

But it was not as though there was a LOT of fire and really, he'd gotten out of there long before the cops showed up.

A few months ago, during a rainy day, they'd decided to play a game of Risk. Things went well…for about the first hour or so. Then alliances and double dealings were formed and it all culminated in Jareth creating a playable dragon that truly, under no circumstance, needed to breathe fire. So she'd countered by setting up landmines of pudding for his troops to fall into because of Jareth's hatred of sticky things. The dragon stepped in the pudding and a goblin came and ate the dragon because of said pudding. At which point the dragon started breathing fire out of the goblin's mouth, the goblin started freaking out and running all over her apartment breathing fire, lighting _other_ goblins on fire as it went, as she was running behind it dropping pudding on the fire because well, it was what she had handy while Jareth tried to turn off the building's sprinkler system. They'd managed to get the goblins back through the mirror before the cops showed up, but not before they cleaned up all the pudding and scorch marks.

So no, Hoggle was not down to play Risk. Sir Didymus was still on board though.

Sarah went into her bedroom to grab Jareth's gift. She'd spent a lot of time thinking about what to get him, they'd never really done a traditional Christmas gift exchange so this was her first experience trying to buy for the man who could have anything he wanted. The influx of ads pushing whiskey stones and artisanal shaving kits were all wrong for Jareth. She'd debated getting him a nice new pair of leather gloves, but realized she'd be really put out if he thought to buy her undergarments and he had a whole drawer full of specially designed gloves. The mall likely didn't carry gloves that were designed for spell casting anyways. The idea had come to her one afternoon while cleaning out her drawers. She'd found some old notes from the Goblins and she realized just the thing for her Goblin King.

She hung out flipping through Jane Eyre in her bedroom, waiting for Jareth to finish with her gift. Finally, when she got to the scene where Rochester and Jane confess their love, Jareth walked in, looking somewhat worse for wear. His hair had gained several more pieces of scotch tape and for some reason he had a cut across his cheek.

"I've brought you a gift," he said quietly, extending the package towards her.

In the end, he'd wrapped it perfectly. There was a beautifully tied ribbon, with a bow on top, and the wrapping job looked professionally done. Sarah let out an impressive whistle.

"You know, I gotta say, much like a hotdog, the process to get it may not be pretty, but the end product sure is. Damn, now I want a hotdog."

"Your gift is not a hotdog," he said brows knitting together in annoyance.

"Shame," Sarah said with a pout. "Guess we'll just have to go back to the cart in the woods."

"What is that," he said, trying to change the subject by pointing to the gift bag Sarah had at the foot of the bed.

"Well that would be your gift," she said, patting the space next to her for him to sit down.

"But…it's in a bag?" He said confused.

"Yeah that's my trick. I suck at wrapping so I always just get a nice bag instead," she said with a wink, giving him a quick peck on the tip of his nose.

"So putting me through the torture of hand wrapping your gift was for…?" He said, helplessly.

"Fun. Namely, mine," she grinned.

"I will get you back for this," he grumbled.

"I'm sure you'll get me back for it before the night is over," Sarah said, rolling her eyes. "Now open your gift!"

Jareth glared at her one more time before grabbing the gift bag. Slowly and deliberately he removed every piece of tissue paper as Sarah watched expectantly. Finally, he pulled out her gift at the bottom of the bag.

Knit together with golds, greys, browns and black was a long scarf. At the bottom of each tail was the pattern of his sigil, just like the amulet he wore.

"I'm not a great knitter," Sarah said taking a breath. "So I know it's not perfect or anything. I tried to get the sigil right, and I had Ludo help me a bit to make it even. I wanted something really long so you could wrap it around your neck a bunch of times since you're forever wearing those low-cut shirts. But I chose this gift because eight or so years ago, I made Sir Didymus a scarf. It wasn't very well made, but I spent about a month trying to get it ready for Christmas. I gave Hoggle some marmalade, and Ludo a game of marbles. I didn't realize that these were the first Christmas gifts my friends had ever received. I didn't realize that in knitting that scarf I'd find myself and my life totally co-opted by Goblins, and Goblin Kings alike. That the act of making that scarf might have been more powerful than that first wish. That scarf is coming apart, and filled with holes and probably quite a few pudding stains by now. Sir Didymus still wears it proudly. I didn't know then, what I know now. About you, about the Underground, or about … anything really. But I can honestly say, there's no place I'd rather be, and no one I'd rather be with. So it seems only right that your first Christmas gift should be a scarf as well, since it was what brought you home to me. Merry Christmas Jareth, and I do love you very much."

"Oh I do wish you hadn't," Jareth said, flopping backwards onto her bedspread.

"Oh...why?" Sarah said, feeling her heart start to sink.

Jareth leaned forward, propping himself up on his elbow. "Because your gift is perfect Sarah. It so far surpasses my gift that despite spending the better part of today attempting to wrap it, I'm not sure I want you to open it."

"To be honest, half the gift was definitely watching you war with the wrapping paper," Sarah said, grabbing Jareth's gift to her.

"I just want to take the opportunity to remind you that I once turned the Bog into your fondest ice skating dreams," he said as she began to tear into the paper.

"I don't have any ice skating dreams I can't skate," she said, not looking up from the box.

Sarah removed the gift from the plain brown box he'd placed it in. Inside to her complete surprise, she found a new DVD player and every John Hughes' movie Sarah could name. She looked up at her very nervous looking Goblin King and bit her lip to keep from laughing.

"You...replaced my DVD player? And got me The Breakfast Club?"

"If you'd allow me a few moments I'm sure I can provide something suitably magical," he said quickly. "Something that does not involve wrapping paper."

"What after you conquered it? Absolutely not!" She said clutching the DVDs to her chest. "These are mine and I love them Jareth. Love them. Between this and the war on Christmas wrapping you staged, I honestly am … really charmed."

"You are forever complaining about how I damaged your original device, I thought it a suitable gift to replace it for you even though I had nothing to do with the initial...malfunction," he said, and Sarah saw the tenseness leave his shoulders.

"Jareth I think you may have sent that DVD player back in time. It oozed noxious purple goop for a few minutes, lit off some more truly foul smelling purple smoke - seriously I don't even think the bog smells that bad, and then poof! Gone! Where did it go Jareth? Where did the DVD player and Ferris Bueller's Day Off go?!"

"If I knew that I simply would have retrieved the old machine," he grumbled. "I replaced the film, along with several others by the same filmmaker. I was told he's a favourite of yours."

"You were told by me, many times, because I love John Hughes movies. But that kinda proves my point about why I like it. Actually no, why I love it. It's thoughtful Jareth. I love it when you think about me. I love it even more when you think about me, and what I like, what I don't like. You even remembered not to include St. Elmo's Fire because of my inability to watch a Demi Moore movie without getting unreasonably angry."

"Because she reminds you of your mother," he nodded. "I remember."

"Yeah...yeah that's why I love it Jareth," she said, giving him a smile. "It's a wonderfully human gift. It's perfect. Or maybe imperfectly perfect. Which makes it human, which makes it perfect."

She leaned over and gave him a kiss and he took the opportunity to pull her down. She snuggled up next to him, facing Jareth and her window, watching the snow lightly fall on her fire escape while he laid soft kisses on her cheeks and temples.

"Merry Christmas Sarah, I also love you very much."

"Seem like that's our lot in life, to love each other very much," she sighed happily, nestling closer. "I guess it'll have to do."

"Yes, I guess it will," he said smiling. "But I think I hear our friends arriving."

"Mmm the Christmas cookies will keep them busy for a while," she said, snuggling further into the crook of his neck.

"Not busy enough for all the ways I'll be celebrating with you tonight."

"Okay," she said rolling over. "First we settle, then we Catan, then we bang. Deal?"

"An acceptable bargain," he said offering his hand.

She took it, giving it a firm shake, and they nodded at each other seriously, before Sarah started laughing.

"Come on, grab the game and I'll put on Christmas Vacation with my shiny new non-time travelling DVD player."

"I'll grab the board game. Pour me a glass of mulled wine love," he said giving her a quick peck before leaping off the bed.

"My lady? Sire?" Sir Didymus called from the kitchen.

"They's in the bedroom bein' gross," Hoggle replied sourly.

"We're just grabbing the board game!" Sarah shouted at him.

"Whatever yous say." Hoggle muttered.

"Come on Rocket Man, Christmas awaits," Sarah said, grabbing her new DVD player.

"As long as you don't ask me to wrap anything else, I'm right behind you. I think this is going to be an excellent year." he replied.

The DVD player, unfortunately, was toast before the new year.

* * *

 **A/N: Did I write this in 24 hours because I forgot about Christmas? No absolutely not! (Yes, very yes). Please send me lots of hate mail about typos and grammar mistakes as a result.**

 **Somewhere in the middle of 17th century France, a DVD player has appeared in the court of King Louis XIV. Sarah and Jareth's desire to watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off may or may not have played a role in the French Revolution. Hard to know.**


End file.
